Wish I Were Here

Chapter 8

O ut on the lawn, I find Luca juggling.

Or—well—he’s trying to anyway. To be honest, he’s not very good, but he’s laughing as he tosses the clubs in the air and doesn’t seem to mind that most of them land on the grass instead of back in his hands. For a moment, I hover out of sight behind a tree and watch him move with that dancer’s grace. How would his lean muscles look wrapped around an aerial silk?

I shove that ridiculous thought away. This missing identity situation is clearly messing with my head, because not only am I spending way too much time thinking about my doorman, but now I’m thinking about my doorman doing circus tricks .

Circus tricks.

Dad, who is of course the owner of the clubs that Luca is dropping, picks them up from the grass and hands them back, making a go ahead motion like Luca should keep trying. He does, tossing two from each hand at the same time. They sail into the air, and as gravity takes over and the clubs come careening back down, Luca seems to realize he’ll never be able to catch all four at once. He ducks out of the way and wraps an arm over his head to protect himself. Despite myself, a smile tugs at my lips.

I head across the grass and stop to stand in front of him. “Try throwing them one at a time, and a little bit higher in the air next time.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him,” Dad says, picking the clubs up again.

Luca’s gaze swings to mine. “Hey. You’re back early. How did it go?”

Before I can answer, Dad holds out the clubs in my direction. “Here, Kitty Cat. Why don’t you show him how it’s done?”

Luca’s eyes go wide. “Kitty Cat? Show me how it’s done? ” He looks at Dad and back at me. “You two know each other?”

“We sure do.” Dad cocks his head at Luca. “How do you know Cat?”

Because it completely doesn’t surprise me that these two gravitated together, I might as well make introductions. “Luca, meet my dad, Andrew. And, Dad, this is my—uh—friend Luca. He works in my building.”

A grin spreads across Luca’s face. “You’re Catherine’s dad ?”

“Sure am.” Dad tucks his clubs under his arm and holds out a hand to Luca. “Any friend of Cat’s is a friend of mine. Call me Andy.”

“Andy.” Luca’s eyes shine like he could not be more delighted. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Dad gives Luca’s hand a vigorous shake.

“Andy was teaching me how to juggle while I waited for you,” Luca needlessly explains. “I had no idea he was your dad.” Luca blinks, and something else seems to register. “Wait. Can you do this?” He waves at the clubs. “Can you juggle?”

“Of course she can,” Dad says before I can stop him. “Cat can juggle rings, clubs, she used to be a whiz with fire. But it’s been a while, hasn’t it, Kitty Cat? Do you still remember that partner routine we used to do? Want to give it a go?”

“Wow,” Luca says, and then he repeats it. If his eyeballs bug out any farther, they will pop from his head, and Dad will probably juggle them. “I would pay money to see you juggle fire. Seriously, how much money do you want? I’ll pay it.”

I shake my head. “You could never afford it.”

“Oh, come on,” Dad says, dumping the clubs into my arms before I can stop him. “At least show your friend a few tricks.” He holds up a finger and turns to jog across the lawn to rescue a wayward juggling club.

“Come on.” Luca nudges me. “Show me your tricks.”

I set the clubs on the ground and press my hands to my temples. “It’s not happening.”

“Kitty Cat, why didn’t you tell me your dad is a circus performer?” Luca’s voice has a hint of awe, like he’s ten and just found out Dad is an astronaut or Superman.

“When would it have come up, Elbow ? When you were spilling coffee on my work clothes or when a police officer was threatening to haul me off to the clink?” I sigh. “I guess I was too busy trying to save my job to tell you about my more colorful family members.”

Luca’s grin fades. “Hey. I guess it didn’t go so well with your boss?”

“No, it didn’t.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

Dad jogs back with the club and stops in front of us. “What’s this about saving your job, Cat?” His forehead wrinkles.

“There’s been a little hiccup with my position at the university.”

“Does this have to do with your boss I met a couple weeks ago? Maybe he had a bit of a stick up his butt…” Dad turns to Luca and holds his hands about a foot apart to show him the approximate size of the stick. Luca nods like he can believe it. “But he thinks you’re pretty smart, so he seemed A-OK to me.”

I fondly remember the days when my biggest problem was that Dad had embarrassed me by sharing my mortifying potty training stories with Dr. Gupta. Was that only a couple weeks ago? And was it really only this morning when I learned my identity had disappeared? It feels like ages ago already.

I try to look on the bright side. At least I won’t have to track Dad down at his apartment. “Hey, Dad, is there any chance you have the original copy of my birth certificate?”

If I wasn’t looking right at him, I probably would have missed the way Dad’s shoulders jerk up, just slightly. For a moment, his face goes pale. But then he shakes his head. “Nope.”

He answered that awfully quickly. Very decisively. That’s so unlike him.

“Are you sure?”

“Yep, I’m sure.”

“How do you know? I found a copy in a box when I was in college. Maybe the original is in another box? Maybe it got mixed up in one of the moves?”

“No. It didn’t.”

I study Dad’s face. He’s looking down at the juggling clubs in his hand, not making eye contact. Something strange is going on. “What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing.” Dad gives an exaggerated shrug, and I remember why his foray into community theater was short-lived. He was always a better circus performer. “It’s just that I’m sure I don’t have it.” Dad is the most noncommittal person I’ve ever met. He’s never sure of anything. You could probably talk him out of his own name, and he’d just go along with it and let you call him Doug.

“But how do you know ?”

It seems that Dad has lost interest in juggling— also strange —because he bends over and starts packing the clubs into his tote bag.

“Dad?”

Finally, he stands upright, leaving the bag on the ground. “I know I don’t have it, Cat, because your mother has it.”

“My—my mother?” My voice wavers, and Luca must pick up on it, because he takes a step closer to me.

Dad doesn’t talk about my mother. He’s never talked about her. This is the most information he’s given me in almost thirty years. Dad isn’t just a clown for his job; he’s a clown in real life, too. I don’t mean that in a disparaging way, I mean he really has the personality of a clown. Fun loving, goofy, perpetually happy. Just about the only time I’ve seen a break in his demeanor is when I ask about my mother. His face goes dark, and he refuses to talk about her. It’s so disorienting to see him shut down that I learned years ago to stop asking. All I know is that she’s still alive, and I’ve never met her. Well, except for the day she gave birth to me, obviously. But then she left me with Dad, and neither of us has seen or talked to her since.

From my birth certificate—ironically—I’m aware that her name is Michelle Jones. My dad was only eighteen when I was born, and I think my mom was young, too. Which means she could be doing anything, living anywhere now.

Here’s a fun fact. Michelle was the third most common baby name in the United States in the mid-1970s, around the time I think my mom was born. There are 18,825 people named Michelle Jones living in the United States. When you google Michelle Jones , you get 164,000,000 hits. I don’t need a PhD in mathematics to know it would take me half a dozen lifetimes to sift through that much data.

I went through a dark phase in my early teens when I wondered if something terrible had happened. Had my mom murdered someone? Had she tried to murder me , and Dad had to take me away? He swore up and down it was nothing like that. And then I began to wonder if he had murdered someone, and we were on the run. But I quickly realized that if someone wants to hide, they generally don’t spend their days juggling in plain sight.

So the sum total of what I know about my mother is her name and that she’s probably not a murderer. The fact that Dad just voluntarily shared this little tidbit leaves me stunned.

“How—how do you know she has my birth certificate?” I finally manage to choke out.

Luca is right beside me now, and I can feel the heat of his arm against mine. I lean sideways, just a tiny bit.

“Well, I don’t know for sure she has it,” Dad admits. “But she used to have it, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she still does. Your mother… she was… very organized.”

I grasp that information like it’s a life preserver and I’ve spent my life adrift at sea. “She was?” I knew it. I knew that’s where I got it from. “How can I reach her to get it back?” And then I’m seized with larger possibilities. Is this my chance to finally meet her? To find out the truth about who I am?

To finally—

I yank the steering wheel before I can head down that road. Going there will only lead to heartache. It’s been almost thirty years, and she left me. I need to focus on the problem at hand.

Dad turns away from me and picks up his hat and tote. He dumps the tip money into the bag—just mixes it all in with the juggling clubs—and flips his hat onto his head.

“Dad? My birth certificate?”

He sighs and finally looks at me. “Sorry, Kitty Cat. I’m afraid you can’t get it back.”

“Why not?”

Dad hesitates. “It’s complicated.”

How complicated could it be? Unless he can’t reach her.

My pulse picks up speed. Is it possible I was right about her all along?

Once my dark phase receded and I decided my mother wasn’t a murderer, I filtered through a whole host of other scenarios for what might have happened to her, until I settled on the one that was the easiest to swallow. Maybe she had to leave. For an important job. Because she’s off in far-flung places helping people. Maybe there was some reason she couldn’t stick around to raise me.

It’s embarrassing. I’m an almost thirty-year-old mathematics professor, far too old for these childish fantasies. But I admit that sometimes—when Dad loses another job, when another collection notice comes in—my mind still drifts in this direction. Because it’s easier than believing she just didn’t care.

“Do you know how to reach my mother?”

Dad shrugs again, his shoulders going all the way up to his ears. “Nope.”

I take a step closer to him. “If my mother has my birth certificate, and you know how to get it back, you have to tell me. My whole life is falling apart here. My identity has gone missing, I almost got arrested today, I’m about to lose my job, and the only hope I have is that birth certificate.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to get it back.” Dad leans over and pats me on the cheek. “But I’m sure you can solve this without involving your mother. You’re the smartest person I know, and you always work things out.”

“I can’t solve this! It’s not a math equation. Math equations have rules. They make sense. Nothing about this situation makes any sense at all.”

He slides the tote bag onto his shoulder. I hear the change jingle to the bottom. “I’ll see you soon for dinner, Kitty Cat.”

“Wait!” I reach out to grab his arm. “You can’t just leave. This isn’t some kind of joke. At least tell me what you know about her.”

Dad pulls away, stumbling in the grass as he backs up. “Let it go, Kitty Cat.” His jaw clenches, and he stares over my shoulder instead of meeting my eyes. “Just let it go, okay?” His voice cracks at the end.

I’m so shocked that I drop my hand, my stomach churning with a turmoil that’s familiar from my childhood conversations about my mother. I swallow down my protests.

Dad runs a hand through his hair, disrupting his man-bun, and shakes his head as if he’s trying to clear it. When he turns to Luca, the tension is gone from his face. “Keep practicing that juggling. You’ll get it eventually.” He gives a wink, but it lacks the warmth and ease of his earlier smiles.

“Thanks, Andy,” Luca says, but his eyes are on me, and his brow creases with something that looks like concern.

“Sorry I’ve gotta go,” Dad says, sounding anything but sorry. He gives me a crooked smile. “I—uh. I’ve got to see a man about a horse.” And with that, he turns and heads in the opposite direction.

I watch him weave across the lawn, waving to a group of older women and making faces at a baby. They all giggle.

“Don’t buy a horse!” I yell, just in case he’s serious. “Don’t even think about buying a horse.”